Review: Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland

Avra Helvaçi, former field agent of the Arasti Ministry of Intelligence, has accidentally stolen the single most expensive secret in the world?and the only place to flee with a secret that big is the open sea.To find a buyer with deep enough pockets, Avra must ask for help from his on-again, off-again ex, the pirate Captain Teveri az-Haffar. They are far from happy to see him, but together, they hatch a take the information to the isolated pirate republic of the Isles of Lost Souls, fence it, profit. The only things in their way? A calculating new Arasti ambassador to the Isles of Lost Souls who’s got his eyes on Avra’s every move; Brother Julian, a beautiful, mysterious new member of the crew with secrets of his own and a frankly inconvenient vow of celibacy; the fact that they’re sailing straight into sea serpent breeding season and almost certain doom.But if they can find a way to survive and sell the secret on the black market, they’ll all be as wealthy as kings and, more importantly, they’ll be legends.

Review.

Dear Alexandra Rowland,

Basically this book could not have been over soon enough for me unfortunately. And I had been reading it on and off for a *week*. Yes, it has 437 pages on my Kindle, but if I am engaged in the story, I will find time to finish it in two – three days tops, no matter how busy I am at work. There are evenings, there is a long commute, I will find time for a good book.

This one I actually preordered. I preordered and paid 14.99 for that. I did that because I felt guilty that I ordered a previous book by this writer from the library and liked it well enough and never purchased a copy. If I will ever be in the mood to try anything else from their works ever again then it is “library only.”

So, the story is meant to be a light hearted romp and I can actually see how it could have worked for me, but for the narrator which is a pretty big BUT I have to admit.

I had not realized it right away, but this book is taking place in the same universe as the previous one. Only here we have pirates and at the beginning, the team of the pirate ship finds an ex of their captain on the ship and everybody does not seem happy about finding him there, since he was presumably disposed/thrown away before and maybe more than once? I am not sure.

You know, after very short getting to know Avra, I have to say I would have thrown him off my ship too and kept doing it no matter how many times he pops up again.

I was shocked when I learned that Avra’s biological age is 35 adult years, because he is acting as petulant child for at least first third of the story.

“All at once there was a flurry of action—Avra more hastily pulled the itchy straw braids out of his kaftan and, as soon as he was free, flung himself toward the capstan and scrambled atop it. “I get to pick the songs!” he shouted over the noise of boots and the clamor of preparations. He crouched on top of the capstan and grinned toward the helm. His promise to be a good and sweet little Avra henceforth floated across his mind, but that did not outweigh the fact that Tev had kicked his knee and taken away all his straw, and had not laughed at any of his jokes so far, and slammed doors in his face, and thought Julian was prettier than he was—which was objectively true, but was Julian as exciting as Avra was? Avra mentally cracked his knuckles and wriggled in anticipation.”

““I was helpful,” Avra said as soon as the anchor had struck the bright turquoise water of the cove. “Tev, I was so helpful.” “Shut up,” Tev muttered through gritted teeth. “We can discuss how helpful you were later.” Avra made a soft noise of woe, just for his own amusement, and went off to harass Oskar, reflecting that there had been a time when he would have hung off of Teveri’s sleeve and batted his eyes for twenty minutes before leaving them be. “Oskar,” he said, sauntering up to where the first mate was getting the dinghies into the water to ferry the crew ashore. “Oskar, I really feel as though I’ve grown as a person lately.” Oskar gave him an incredulous look.

Yes, that’s Avra for you. He really really wants Teveri to fuck him and he wants to lick, fuck or be fucked by new crew member monk/former revolutionary Julian who allegedly took a celibacy vow.

Considering that I imagined a five year old whining when he says those things, the fact that he talked about sex almost non stop was giving me a serious whiplash.

But surely you would ask me whether there was anything more to the story? Sure, there was. There were Blue Dogs and Sea Serpents and some attempt at spying, and at maybe 35 percent or so we do see that occasionally Avra can think as adult and think about something else besides sex (sex is still almost always on his mind), but he shows that he can actually think of other people at times.

The problem for me though was he was just in general a very overwhelming narrator for me, very tiring and that made it a very tiring read which I did finish yes, but I did not care for it much.

I am trying to think about anything I may have liked in this book. It was at times funny for sure and I guess it was a fun trick that as much as three main characters talk about their *desire* to have sex (well mostly Teveri and Avra talk about that, Julian talks about his oath till almost the end), we are not shown any sex taking place, except one scene where we are shown the aftermath only.

C-

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